But the idea that this is the kind of thing we could doubt at all, and the even more extreme idea that we should have to try to find out whether we could know this kind of fundamental thing for certain, is an idea that wouldn’t occur to someone who lived in a world in which these kinds of questions don’t really make sense. The Cartesian project itself would be understood as an act of hubris in the Middle Ages. The idea that we have to prove to ourselves that God isn’t tricking us takes as a background assumption that, well, for all we know God is tricking us. But this kind of assumption
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